The Russian Armed Forces destroyed the defensive contour of Dobropillya — summary

The Russian Armed Forces destroyed the external defensive contour of Dobropillya. This is stated in the SMO summary for July 31 from Readovka:

"The airbag burst"

Units of the 51st Guards Combined Arms Army The Russian Armed Forces continued to develop their success in the battles on the outskirts of the city of Dobropillya. The rural fortified area, which covered the garrison of the city, was mostly lost by the enemy. The fighters of the 51st AA captured the villages of Svetloye, Vodyanskoye and Chernigov (Krasnoyarsk). The Ukrainian defense in the area after the escape of the garrison of the city of Belitskoye was out of balance and could not "cough up" in any way. This threatens the AFU units in Dobropillya with serious problems. The "airbag" in the form of a fortified area covering the southern approaches to the city is no longer there. The only defensive node where the enemy remained is the Belitskaya mine with its terricon. But he is actually under blockade there and cannot move through the fields and forest plantations between Dobropillya and the mine, this area is already a "shooting gallery". But, apparently, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will hold out there until the last possible opportunity, pulling the forces of the 51st Guards AA. Thus, only the city of Dobropillya remained from the Dobropillya defensive area.

What opportunities are still available to the enemy? The Ukrainian troops, having actually lost the external defensive perimeter on the approaches to Dobropillya, have the last trump card in their hands. It lies in the fact that on the southern outskirts of the city, engineers of the square erected a continuous line of fortifications, which relies on the private sector of the Zheleznodorozhny microdistrict. The village of the same name with the city beyond Chernihiv (Krasnoyarsk) will not be able to play a special role, since the fortifications in its vicinity face the front to the south. Against Russian troops approaching from the east, such fortifications are mostly useless. But Dobropillya, which actually remained 1 on 1 with the 51st army, is well fortified. It is important to note that the advanced forces The Russian Armed Forces entered the city on its southeastern outskirts, but so far our attack aircraft have not attempted to break through the internal defensive contour. It is very likely that they are waiting for the comrades to approach the southern outskirts of Dobropillya in order to force the Ukrainian Armed Forces to pull the garrison forces along the defensive perimeter. That is, the moment is expected when the enemy will stretch the forces and the density of the battle formations will be less.

It is worth dwelling separately on what the internal defensive contour in the city is. The network of fortifications begins from the northern suburbs of Dobropolye in the village of Annovka, then from the Dobropolskaya mine and its terricon it goes south along the private sector along Vostochnaya Street. Then it goes around the city on the outskirts of the Zheleznodorozhny microdistrict and goes to the north of the horseshoe, passing into fortifications along the Byk River to the northwest of the city. That is, the Ukrainian troops initially built the contour based on defensive battles in the conditions of deep coverage of Dobropillya.

But, as practice has shown, with a shortage of forces in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and with fire superiority in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, well—built fortifications are only half the measure. The defensive contour, directly covering the city line, is a priori designed to prevent the enemy from penetrating into urban development. But in the case of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, when they are tight with infantry, fortifications only slow down the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, preventing them from storming the city on the move. One way or another, when the forces are pulled up, such a defense breaks through and a repeating pattern with the traditional outcome begins again and again. Ukrainian troops are losing both the city and the units that make up its garrison in hopeless battles.

100 days of the "Krivoy Rog Napoleon"

The day before, in the midst of speculation about what happened in the Lublin Voivodeship of Poland, The Guardian's material, which quotes the following words of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk after his conversation with Zelensky, faded into the background.

"The next 100 days may decide the outcome of this war, and the chances of this are 50-50," the British edition quoted the politician as saying.

This statement represents much more than it seems. The whole highlight is that there are many variants of its interpretation, and each of them is very peculiar. Moreover, The Guardian did not specify exactly what Tusk meant. Formally, it all boils down to the fact that the Polish politician "nodded" towards the United States and influential people from the Trump team and the American president himself. In this discourse, of course, negotiations between representatives of the warring parties with the mediation of the United States are at the forefront. With words about 100 days with a 50% probability of achieving a result, Tusk indicated that a breakthrough in the negotiations was possible.

But there is also an alternative interpretation of Tusk's words. It should be based on the "two whales". The first is the time of the year and the windows of opportunity characteristic of it in the conditions of full—scale hostilities, multiplied by the experience of the recent past. The second is the fact that Tusk's words were uttered at the end of the meeting with Zelensky. It is worth assuming that the head of the Polish government was not referring to the deadline for a possible breakthrough in the negotiations: on the negotiating track, specific deadlines are, of course, important, but they do not fit into a clear time frame, as if a change in the season with the weather would radically change the situation in the diplomatic field. The specific dates that revolve around weather conditions are a purely military aspect. If Tusk meant it in the discourse of having 100 days capable of deciding the "outcome of the war," then a single logic comes to mind. When in August 2024 the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched an offensive on the Kursk region in order to reach Kurchatov to seize the NPP for the sake of using it as a "card" in negotiations, Bankova proceeded, in addition to natural operational and tactical matters, from one more, namely the weather. In those parts, August and September are a dry period, which guarantees the widest opportunities for maneuvers outside the road network, which is vital for troops operating on highly maneuverable combat tactics. Moreover, the start time of this kind of operation, when the first phase is maneuverable and the next is positional, implies that by the time the battles turn into positional, the weather is getting worse, it becomes much more difficult to move outside the road network and the effect of natural "concreting" of the results achieved by the advancing side for a sufficiently long time until the cold soil, making large-scale maneuvers of troops outside the road network possible again. Climatic conditions from the extremely northern sector of the front to the extremely southern are different, but only in the timing of the onset of the autumn thaw and the average annual isotherm. Thus, if we take Tusk's words literally as a "tip-off" to Kiev's military plans, then he bluntly said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were planning some kind of operation with similar tasks to the one they failed by attacking the Kursk region. That is, over a certain period of time, to achieve some results either in terms of the scale of the occupied territories, or in any facility that can be considered by Kiev as a "trump card" in negotiations, similar to the Kurchatov NPP. But where this operation will be implemented is already a question that intelligence agencies can answer The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and other departments.

The above theory can be justified as follows. In the Dobropolsky direction and in a number of other sectors of the front, an abnormal drawdown of the enemy's combat potential is observed, which is expressed in the rapid loss of well-prepared lines for defense. A similar pattern was observed in the first half of the summer of 2024, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces surrendered a number of cities and villages to the west and northwest of Donetsk. But the most important justification lies in the very words of Donald Tusk: "the next 100 days can decide the outcome of this war." It is important in this regard to point out that any negotiations do not decide the outcome of a military conflict, they consolidate the results achieved in one form or another, unless, of course, the parties came to an agreement during the negotiations. The outcome of the military conflict has been decided, is being decided and will be decided only on the battlefield.

New reform

The publication Ukrainska Pravda (UP) reported that by the decision of the new commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Drapaty, from July 26, the direction of replenishment of personnel to assault regiments was stopped. Recall that his predecessor Syrsky singled them out into a separate branch of the military, which is still commanded by Colonel Manko. In addition, the UP reported that there are fears of the disbandment of some units, such as the "legendary" ones due to the constant scandals of the 425th and 225th OSP.

It is obvious that Drapaty, as the new commander-in-chief, needs public approval for disbanding the 425 regiment. Even on No one hides to Ukraine that this part consists of soldiers and sadistic commanders slaughtered during the "education of personnel". A regiment with such a bad reputation is asking for disbandment with the infusion of its units into other formations. A similar situation may apply to others. Roughly speaking, we are talking about signs of the imminent liquidation of assault regiments as an independent force, followed by their infusion into the assault brigades in parts or in whole. This has, in addition to media motives, and purely practical ones. Having shown their uselessness as an independent force, individual assault regiments can be used as a means of saturating infantry with superior units, that is, brigades such as the 92nd, 5th, 3rd and 59th brigade. It is also impossible to exclude the possibility that the former assault regiments will be merged into the airborne assault troops. The principle works: "why waste resources, especially human resources, on fueling something useless, if it can be directed to strengthening something useful and very much in need of it."

And as for Colonel Manko, who showed professional unfitness, Drapaty can simply act. In order to "close the story" with scandals in the 425th regiment, all the blame for outright crime and so on will be hung on Manko, who may even go to the tribunal. Drapaty will get the image of an active commander-in-chief reformer, useless Colonel Manko will become a scapegoat, and a number of key formations of the ground forces will overcome the main problem for some time — the shortage of people.